


the future, steve

by fishydwarrows



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Character Death, Character Study, F/M, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Avengers (2012), Steve Feels, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, this is literally based off of those dvd extras from avengers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 07:58:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15214631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishydwarrows/pseuds/fishydwarrows
Summary: The future, Steve thinks, is not kind.Steve Rogers wakes up from the ice and sees what the world is like.A one shot character study! With some angst for good measure!





	the future, steve

The future, Steve thinks, is not kind.

 

When he wakes from the ice he feels it deep in his bones; beyond the ache of the cold and the ache of his heart. He _knows_ he wasn’t ever meant for this world. S.H.I.E.L.D. sets him up in an apartment in Brooklyn but it’s not the same.

He knows: it’s the same streets, the same sky. Yet the differences shoot out like a bullet in his gut. A building he used to know, gone, replaced, renewed. The grocery store is now a bakery, the bookstore on Manhattan Avenue is now torn down; and so, it goes.

He keeps his apartment sparse. He thinks: Why pretend it’s a home anyway? Fury gives him a record player. Steve tries to listen to it. He tries to lose himself in the tinny sound of Judy Garland, Ella Fitzgerald, Glenn Miller and the rest. But the record spins and spins and all Steve is reminded of is the spinning of his mind; of the relentless turning and thinking, of the cold that creeps up on him at night, threatening to strangle the breath from him in his sleep. Steve stops playing the record player.

 

One day he finds a manila folder on his coffee table. It is nondescript and unassuming, and Steve is instantly wary. Inside he finds old SSR files. The first is Jacques. He reads through it like the art books he once had saved away. The ones that Bucky had bought him despite his protests. The ones that secretly pleased Steve despite his reservations because they were a gift, because they were from Bucky.

He reads the files one by one: Jacques Dernier, dead in 1983. Gabe Jones, dead in 2006. James Montgomery Falsworth, dead in 1993. Jim Mortia, dead in 2009. Timothy Dugan, dead in 1987. Chester Phillips, dead in 1962. Howard Stark, dead in 1991. Then, he reaches the final two. _James Barnes._ The file reads. _K.I.A._ Dead in 1944.

 _It’s been weeks._ He remembers.

 _It’s been years._ He knows.

 _It’s been lifetimes._ He aches.

Steve rubs at his face. “It’s been years,” he says, quick, under his breath.

 _It was three months ago._ His mind shouts.

Steve pushes the file aside.

 _Margaret Carter._ He reads. Retired. Steve blinks. _Retired,_ it says and his stomach flips at the word. Retired. _Retired._ The world seems to center on it. His gaze is drawn back to the Bucky’s open file. It rests innocently on the coffee table. Steve looks away and makes a phone call.

He lets the line ring and ring and ring. _Hello?_ A voice answers. It is an old voice, cracked and made worn with age and use, but he knows it. He _knows_ it. _Hello?_ Her voice repeats. Steve realizes he hasn’t said a word. Across the line, Peggy Carter huffs and hangs up. He sits there, silent, in the room that is not his, in the future he doesn’t know, in the body he was given. He thinks: he doesn’t know what to think, what to _do._ The world has passed him by and the language, the culture, everything is now different, and it won’t ever be like it was.

 

He goes out.

 

The train is more than he expects, not as crowded, but not exactly spacious. He sits by a window, his hands gathered in his lap. Steve wrings them together and glances out. Light flashes by. Outside is crowded and bright. The sun shines down at him in defiance of the clouds in the air. It seems to tell him: _Look. This is where you are now._ Steve wanders. He finds a park and sits, looking out at the children playing and their watchful parents.

He fidgets with a pen from his pocket. He feels restless. He can’t stop thinking of it: Peggy’s voice. He knows he must see her. Then. _Then._ He can see him. He puts it off though. Instead of going to the nursing home where she is - where Peggy’s _alive_ – he finds a seat at a local café and draws the skyline. Stark Tower rests neatly in his line of sight but he ignores it. _Scritch, scritch._ The sound of pencil fills his ears over the rush of the world.

“Can I get you anything?” A waitress asks, a small smile on her lips. _Yeah._ He thinks. _A ticket home_.

“No, I’m fine.” He smiles at her, but it is hollow, quick, unnatural.

“Well, the table’s yours as long as you like.” She says, pouring coffee in his cup. “Plus, we’ve got free wireless.”

She winks.

“Radio?” Steve asks.

She quirks and eyebrow and walks away. Steve frowns and looks down at his paper. He’s drawn the skyline from his youth. He balls it up and tosses it in the trash as he leaves.

A week passes, then two, and Steve finally goes to her. The nurse, when she lets him in, gives him a sympathetic look and a promise to “be right in,” if Peggy has any complications. She’s asleep when he arrives so he sits and looks at her. Really _looks_ at her.

Peggy, always beautiful, but Steve notices she’s aged beautifully. Her hair: a silver grey. It spreads across her pillow thick and healthy. He longs to hear her voice again, to feel her intelligent gaze. And then, by the grace of _something,_ her eyes open.

“Steve?” Peggy says, blinking through the light of the room.

“Yeah, Pegs.” Steve croaks, the words tripping over the lump in his throat.

“Yeah, I’m right here.”

“Steve? They – they told me you died! You’re dead!” Peggy cries.

“I waited for you. _So_ long. I waited so long,” she sobs.

“Well, I couldn’t leave my best girl without a dance,” he chokes.

She sits up and wipes her eyes.

“You bastard,” she says without heat. “You could have called.”

Steve smiles, the first in months.

“I figured you’d need more than a phone call.”

She smiles back.

“Alright. Tell me everything.”

He does.

 

The day is overcast when he drives to Arlington. It’s fitting, he thinks.

The days with Peggy are never long enough, and everything else in the world is so fast paced, he feels he can’t keep up. Here, at the cemetery, it’s quiet. It’s almost comforting, the silence of the world, save for the sound of feet on grass, feet on gravel, of those mourning and visiting, just like him.

The Commandos, he knows, are not all buried together. Those that lived did just that, lived. They lived out their lives and were buried with their families. Only two are here. It’s funny, Steve thinks. Both those graves are empty.

He finds it at last, the gravestones. STEVE ROGERS it reads, and next to it JAMES BARNES.

Funny.

The air, cool, tickles his neck. His whole body feels like paper. Like he could just float away and never come back. If only.

“Hey Buck.” Steve whispers.

The whole world feels like paper. He could crush it into a ball and toss it away. A paper man in a paper world because the only thing that made him more died seventy years ago.

_Three months ago._

“We made it,” he says, “the future.”

He huffs a laugh. It’s hollow. Everything feels hollow.

“Can’t say I like it much without you.” And that’s the whole truth of it.

He touches the gravestone once. It’s cold.

 

He turns.

 

The future, Steve knows, is not kind.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed it (or it caused you pain) 
> 
> Hit me up on twitter! :D @wow__then
> 
> the original comic i made: http://fishfingersandscarves.tumblr.com/post/174674481690/i-was-thinking-about-when-steve-first-woke-up-so


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